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Grant Enfinger starting another ARCA season at Daytona on Saturday

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Grant Enfinger of Fairhope celebrates with Howard Bixman of Team BCR Racing after winning the ARCA Mobile 200 at Mobile International Speedway in Irvington, Ala., on March 9, 2013. (Mike Kittrell/mkittrell@al.com)

Grant Enfinger and a co-worker at Team BCR Racing were in the team hauler on Monday, ferrying their race cars through the night from North Carolina to Daytona International Speedway in Florida. They wanted to head off a potential problem and get out of the Tar Heel State before an approaching winter storm hit.

If only all the things that can go wrong for a race team were that easily avoided.

The Fairhope driver is in Daytona for the season-opening event on the ARCA Racing Series' 2014 schedule. He'll drive the No. 90 Motor Honey/Advance Auto Parts Ford for Team BCR Racing in the Lucas Oil 200 presented by MAVTV American Real at 3:15 p.m. CST Saturday.

Last year in the ARCA race at Daytona, Enfinger qualified to start sixth, but was relegated to a 39th-place finish by a mechanical failure suffered on pit road.

"That happens," Enfinger said. "I feel like we've done a little bit better job from that point on to try to go through everything with a fine-toothed comb. At the end of the day, we're running on a budget. We're not mileaging out parts probably quite as often as we should. You're going to have some of that, but I feel like we've stepped up our game. I don't anticipate going there with any issues."

Enfinger and Team BCR bounced back in the second race of the 2013 season to win the ARCA Mobile 200 at Mobile International Speedway and added another ARCA victory at Iowa Speedway. He's hoping to carry the 2013 momentum into the new season.

"I think we're going to do good," Enfinger said of his Daytona expectations. "This is the same car we took to Daytona and Talladega last year. It was really fast in both places. Neither race turned out how we wanted it to last year, but it's by far the best speedway car I've been in. I feel really good about it. We had a good test in December. The car had a good bit of speed."

Enfinger has raced at Daytona four times. In ARCA events, he finished 30th in 2010 and ninth in 2011 before last year's abbreviated outing. In 2012, he finished 12th in Daytona's NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race. But his car makes him more confident about Saturday's showing than do his previous races at Daytona.

"Daytona and Talladega both are one of those places where you're kind of at everybody else's mercy," Enfinger said. "I don't think you're ever super-comfortable when you get there. Everything is kind of up in the air until the last lap, and even then, it's up in the air. I have more confidence going there knowing that we have a car that was fast at the test and was fast last year, and I feel like we have a really good speedway package right now. I think that, more than the experience there, is a confidence-booster."

After the Daytona race, Enfinger will defend his victory in the ARCA Mobile 200 on March 22. After that, his plans for the season are up in the air. Enfinger didn't want "to say anything to jinx" himself, but with the help of Casite/Motor Honey, Advance Auto Parts, Wurth USA and Snelling Industries, he's hopeful of running more races than last year's eight.